The Great Depression Of The 1920s - 1346 Words

The 1920s was an economic growth period for American companies and businesses. One of the key ways of making money during this period was to buy stocks and shares. As with consumer goods such as washing machines and kitchenware’s, there was the option of buying stocks and shares on credit, which meant that purchasing shares on the stock market was available to almost everyone. Thousands of Americans rushed in to gain benefit from the share market with many using their life savings or borrowed money to take advantage of this boom. These dramatic increases in the sales of shares and stock led to over production; which in the long run, simply could not be sustained. The Wall Street stock market crashed in October 1929 and this triggered the†¦show more content†¦Although the Wall Street Crash signalled the beginning of the Great Depression across the globe, there were other significant underlying factors that contributed to the devastating impact it had on Australia. The Government had been borrowing money from the United States in the form of loans or buying things on credit. The Wall Street Crash led the American Government to begin to recall all borrowed offshore money in order to get their economy back up and running, this was a problem for many nations who were in debt to the U.S. There was also a decrease in the amount of exports shipped from Au stralia and in turn, their price was then lowered which resulted in a fall in off shore spending and lead to a reduction in Government capital spending (Cooksey, 1970) The Great Depression hit the shores of Australia during the 1930’s when international commodities dropped and the nation was left in debt. This initiated a period of high unemployment, poverty and extreme hardship for the people of Australia. The Depression not only affected the nations economy but it also had a huge social impact on Australia’s population as many families and individuals were forced out of their homes and jobs, and were made to live in poverty. (Cooksey, 1970) Due to the decrease in factory productions there was a cut in wages, as well a cull of